


“No, it’s good.”

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: First Kisses [53]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Cormoran “no it’s good” Strike, F/M, First Kiss, Narciso - Freeform, don’t care, goddammit Barclay, he has terrible timing, is bacon a red meat?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: MINOR TROUBLED BLOOD SPOILERS, NOT PLOT-RELATED, SOME SHIP-RELATED
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: First Kisses [53]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1022949
Comments: 46
Kudos: 130





	“No, it’s good.”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pools_of_venetianblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pools_of_venetianblue/gifts).



> For pools_of_venetianblue, for the prompt “..a fic where Strike & Robin are stuck working in the office all day; Strike is being driven slowly over the edge by the smell of the perfume he bought Robin (kinda wishing he'd picked out something less sexy now??) until she brushes past him & he smells the Narciso even clearer and just completely loses control over himself...”
> 
> Thank you to hobbeshalftail3469 who helped when I got stuck ❤️

It took Strike most of the morning to work out what was causing such disruption to his focus and equilibrium today.

They had come to a brief lull between cases. Lazy Nanny had abruptly finished yesterday when Robin had managed to get the evidence that would prove conclusively to the employer that their nanny was indeed bordering on negligent in her disregard for her charges. The client had dismissed her at Robin’s word, and wanted to see the full range of evidence tomorrow once she had made alternative childcare arrangements, having taken today off work to spend with her children. Robin had rung the next client on the list and made an initial appointment for later in the week.

Strike was also on hiatus, with both his active cases briefly on hold - Mr Suspicious had taken Redhead away for a few days and the supposedly cheating businessman Mr Strong, monikered for his gym obsession and improbable physique, was in bed with flu and required no surveilling.

So the detectives had given Barclay and Hutchins a rare day off and were catching up on paperwork, updating files, filling in invoices. The only sounds in the office were the tapping of fingers on keyboards, the scratch of a pen, and occasionally Pat’s rasping voice from the other room as she answered the phone. Ever efficient, she would deal with the caller and send on an email précis within ten minutes if it was a potential client.

Weak winter sun streamed through the blinds and fell across the partners’ desks. Tea steamed in mugs. Companionable quiet reigned.

And yet Strike was having difficulty focusing on work, not a problem he normally had at all. His gaze kept wandering to his partner. The weather had cooled rapidly in the last week as Halloween approached: Robin was wearing her snug cream sweater, the one that hugged her curves so deliciously, but he usually did a much better job of not noticing than he was managing today. Her golden hair caught the sun and glinted with fire as she swung from computer screen to file and back again. The jumper stretched across her curves as she reached for the stapler. Once or twice Strike caught himself simply gazing at her and had to hurriedly pull his attention back to his notes. What was wrong with him today?

Then late morning Robin declared a tea break and stood. She leaned across to his desk to grab his mug, and a waft of her scent swept over him, making him think of warm skin and crushed flowers, and it hit him.

_It’s that bloody perfume._

It just so happened that the detectives hadn’t spent a lot of time together since Robin’s birthday two weeks ago. A slight lull at the agency and the fact that most of their cases were local had meant no long road trips, but a steady trickle of surveillance shifts had meant the two partners hadn’t been cloistered together in the office before now. Strike had had the odd pleasant hint of Robin’s scent, enough for him to know she was wearing it, enough to make him hide a soft smile, but he hadn’t spent concentrated time around her.

It was incredibly distracting.

Colour washed across his cheeks, and he swung to face his computer screen, hoping she hadn’t seen his reaction or heard his slight intake of breath at the realisation. Then she was gone, and he could hear her in the outer office, chatting to Pat, boiling the kettle.

Strike hauled himself up and went to open the window to try to let some air through the office, and then on impulse grabbed his cigarettes. That would mask the smell somewhat, at least in his own sinuses.

He rarely smoked in the office now that he shared it with Robin, so he took his cigarettes down to street level to enjoy his nicotine hit leaning up against the wall next to the front door, the hammering of the incessant roadworks filling the air.

By the time he returned to his desk, there was a fresh cup of steaming tea by his open file, and Robin had closed the window again. He wasn’t surprised; it might be sunny outside but it was bitterly cold. Rubbing his hands together briskly to restore some warmth, he gave her a grin and thanked her for his tea, and sat back down at his desk and bent to his work, determined to concentrate.

He could still smell that perfume, just the subtlest hint coiling seductively around him. Why, oh, why had he chosen the one that reminded him of musky skin? Why not the one that had made him think of cake? He could deal with a craving for cake by... Well, eating cake. But this—

Firmly Strike attempted to rationalise his reactions. It had been a really long time since he’d enjoyed female company in that way. In the early months after Lorelei there had been a couple of one-night stands. An old school friend he had bumped into on a weekend down in St Mawes, newly divorced and safely far away. He’d managed to forget to tell her when he was next visiting his uncle. And a waitress from a cafe where he’d spent a solid two weeks whilst watching the office over the road. She’d left her number on the back of his till receipt, and he’d waited until he was sure he wouldn’t be going back to the cafe before ringing her. He wasn’t exactly proud of either of these dalliances; although he’d been reasonably sure the casual nature of the encounters was mutual in both cases, he’d somehow not told anyone about them, even Nick.

So since then his love life had been non-existent. Which was probably the only reason for his distraction today. It was only normal for a red-blooded male after a long period of enforced celibacy to find his thoughts turning that way sometimes, he told himself. It would pass. It usually did.

It didn’t help when the object of his desires (okay, fine, yes, he could admit to himself that he fancied her even if not to anyone else) was right there by his side all day, apparently unaware of the simmering undercurrent of desire he was desperately trying to keep a lid on. Every swing of her hair, every swish past his desk on her way to the filing cabinet sent a subtle wash of her scent across him, warm and faintly floral with a musky undertone that called directly to the most primal part of him and had him wondering if her skin was as soft as it looked, if her hair was as silky, how it might look spread across his pillow—

“Lunch!” he said, briskly and a little too loudly, standing up.

Robin looked up in surprise. “It’s only just twelve.”

“I’m hungry,” he replied, and she giggled. Was it his imagination, or did she sound throatier, sexier? “Any requests?”

Robin put her head on one side, wrinkling her nose up and pursing her lips in a way that made Strike want to drag her across the desk and kiss the breath from her body. He determinedly turned his back and pulled his coat from the rack.

“BLT, please,” she said decidedly. “I’m in a red meat mood.”

Strike swallowed hard. “Right you are,” he replied. He patted his pockets, checking for wallet, keys, cigarettes, and set off.

Pat declined his offer of a sandwich and followed him down the stairs, declaring an intention to go shopping in her lunch break for a gift for her niece’s new baby. They parted ways on Denmark Street, and Strike marched himself to the local Tesco Metro to buy sandwiches, smoking a cigarette and giving himself a firm talking to both on the way there and the way back. The fresh air cleared his head, and thoughts of food distracted his libido; he was feeling more in control of himself as he climbed the endless stairs back to the office, musing that, dismaying though the possibility of an enforced move might be, a new premises with fewer stairs - or a working lift - would be most welcome.

Robin was still at her desk. She glanced up as he put her sandwiches and crisps in front of her, and gave a soft smile when she saw he’d added a KitKat.

“For that mid-afternoon slump,” he told her, seeing her look, and she grinned.

Strike put his lunch on his own desk and went back through to the outer office to fill the kettle and put it on. He pressed the switch and picked up the newspaper that was sat by the kettle; idly perusing the headlines, he set off back to his desk and bumped right into Robin who was stepping out of the inner office.

“Shit, sorry—” Strike looked up just in time to inhale a lungful of Narciso with his slight gasp.

“Mayo—” Robin waved vaguely at the outer office in an attempt to explain her presence in the doorway.

Strike stared at her, too close in the narrow space, that perfume filling his senses. Her gold hair glinted in the slanting light across the office. Her chest heaved in the seductive sweater as she took a shuddering breath, and suddenly all he could think about was warm, musky skin, about her lips and how soft they would feel against his.

He was staring, unable to move, suddenly terrified that he might actually do something that would forever change the parameters of their relationship.

Robin hesitated, then laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Are— Are you okay?”

“The perfume,” Strike blurted before he could stop himself. “You’re wearing it.”

Her brows knit a little. “Yes. Is it too much?”

“No, it’s good.” His voice came out huskier than he’d intended.

Strike swallowed hard. He’d said too much; a blush was creeping up from Robin’s neck and washing across her cheeks, and he should step away, back to the kettle that was chuntering behind him, make the tea, force his mind back to the prosaic.

He couldn’t move.

“You chose it,” Robin said now, softly. “I thought you liked it.”

“I do.” _Too much_.

“So—”

He leaned down and kissed her.

Robin gave a squeak of surprise and Strike recoiled, horrified for a second at what he had done, but her hand tightened on his arm and her mouth chased his and suddenly they were kissing properly, and she tasted every bit as good as she smelled.

The newspaper slipped from Strike’s grasp and fell to the floor in a mess of pages as his arms slid around her and he pulled her closer, his head spinning as her mouth opened to his, inviting him forward. He kissed her as he had longed to do for so many months, his tongue exploring her mouth, the perfume filling his nostrils and the taste of her, the feel of her... For a blissful minute or two, his senses were full of nothing but Robin as they kissed, and then abruptly she drew away, her hands on his chest pushing gently.

Strike stepped back at once, and only then did he hear the clang of boots on the metal stairs outside. Blushing furiously, Robin turned and scurried back to her desk as the outer door opened and Barclay walked in.

Strike turned, and for a moment the two men stared at one another, Strike stood in the doorway with a mess of papers around his feet, trying to control his breathing and marshal his scattered thoughts into some semblance of functionality.

“It’s your day off,” he managed.

“Thought I’d bring me invoices in,” Barclay said, grinning. “Get in trouble wi’ the boss if I’m late.” He nodded towards Pat’s desk.

Strike nodded, bending to scoop up the dropped newspaper, trying to shuffle it back into less of a mess as though doing so would have the same effect on his thought processes. “Tea?”

“Nah, ta. The family’s doonstairs. We’re takin’ the wean to see the Halloween shit at Hamley’s.” Barclay laid an envelope on Pat’s desk where she couldn’t fail to spot it, and with a wave to Robin through the open inner door, he was gone.

Deliberately slowing his breathing, Strike turned back to the kettle and slowly assembled two mugs of tea. What had he done? In one moment of impulse he had jeopardised the friendship he prized most highly in his life, the working relationship that was the best he’d ever had, that he could never replace. How could he find his way back to where they had been ten minutes ago?

What he couldn’t do was run away from the problem. Robin was right there, and he needed to talk to her, find out what she wanted, what they were going to be to each other from here on.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up the two mugs and went back to their shared office. Robin looked up as he approached, bearing his peace offering of a mug of tea made just the way she liked it.

The smile she gave him was dazzling.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts/suggestions always welcome, although _surely_ there can’t be any scenario we haven’t covered? 😂


End file.
